Is Nvidia really about to add to its lineup of top GPUs? All signs point to yes, and now, we have an official Nvidia keynote on the horizon that tells us when we might hear more about the rumored RTX 40 Super. Nvidia revealed that it’s going to deliver a special address on January 8 as part of CES 2024. Although the company hasn’t confirmed what it’s planning to cover, the rumor mill has been buzzing with information about three new desktop GPUs. But will they really be worth the upgrade?
Several reputable leakers have weighed in on the matter of the RTX 40-series refresh, and we’ve been getting updates about the range for a few weeks now. Nvidia doesn’t need to specifically state that it’ll talk about these graphics cards, as that is going to be the expectation anyway. The three GPUs in question are the RTX 4080 Super, RTX 4070 Ti Super, and the RTX 4070 Super.
During its previous keynote at CES 2023, Nvidia talked about the RTX 40 laptop range but also unveiled the RTX 4070 Ti — formerly known as the RTX 4080 12GB. This year, as shared by VideoCardz, it’s likely that we’ll hear about all three new desktop GPUs, but some updates regarding AI are also possible. Although Nvidia might announce all three graphics cards at once, we don’t know whether all three will hit the market simultaneously. Leaks point to the first quarter of the year for all three, though.
Initially, it seemed like Nvidia might deliver a sizeable upgrade with the RTX 40-series refresh. Sources claimed that Nvidia might shake things up, upgrading the RTX 4080 Super to the AD102 GPU (which is the flagship chip found in the RTX 4090). The RTX 4070 Super was said to be getting upgraded to the AD103 chip, which is currently utilized by the RTX 4080. These changes would unlock far more cores, an increase in VRAM, and a larger memory bus for both cards.
However, it’s best not to put much stock in these assumptions. Other leaks suggest that the RTX 40 refresh will be a minor upgrade, with all cards sticking to their respective chips and maxing out the remaining core counts. Some rumors pin the RTX 4080 Super as featuring 10,240 CUDA cores and 16GB of GDDR6X memory across a 256-bit bus. The RTX 4070 Ti Super is said to sport 8,448 CUDA cores and 16GB VRAM, while the RTX 4070 Super might have 7,168 cores and 12GB VRAM.
Those specs mark an increase over the non-Super cards, but not a massive one. The RTX 4070 Ti Super (as a side note, that name’s always going to be a mouthful) would see the greatest boost thanks to the jump from 12GB to 16GB VRAM, while the core count boosts are mostly minor.
Regardless of the specs, the RTX 40 Super lineup might serve one important purpose — it should help the prices of some GPUs go down. Nvidia’s pricing has been on a worrying upward trend, which doesn’t bode well for the next generation of GPUs. If we can see the existing RTX 4070, RTX 4070 Ti, and the RTX 4080 drop in price thanks to the refresh, that alone will be a good thing.
We’ll be covering CES 2024 live as it happens, so stay tuned to make sure you don’t miss Nvidia’s announcement.
